Computer Viruses In Hungary In December

The Hungary-based specialist of IT security continuously monitors virus occurrence and activity. Data from VirusBuster's mail protection systems -- in-house and externally deployed alike -- is collected, and Freemail, a major Hungarian free webmail service is also monitored for malicious load. VirusBuster uses all these sources to generate monthly statistics of the most frequent infections. These monthly virus toplists are published on the company's website as well.

How was the Hungarian threat landscape in December? To put it short, it was business as usual. "The last month of the year was quiet. No special outbreak of fake antivirus trojans could be observed. All we could see were some old botnet trojans and e-mail worms", says Gábor Szappanos, the head of VirusBuster's virus lab.

The results came as a surprise to experts. Holidays are favorite attack periods for hackers who take advantage of the fact that many system administrators are away, and the installation of security updates tends to be delayed. Therefore, holidays are often accompanied by new, virulent malware outbreaks

Trojans, mentioned above, are malicious programs which got their name from the legendary wooden horse built by the Greeks to defeat Troy: They pretend to serve users, but in fact they are designed to cheat their victims. Botnets are networks of unknowing victim PCs (called zombies), which are controlled by hackers. Users should take steps to get rid of botnet malware, since otherwise they may become accomplices in the cybercriminals' activities.

VirusBuster's malware toplist for December 2009:

Malware Share (%)
Backdoor.Bandok.GT 18.06%
Worm.SdBot.GAP 14.25%
Trojan.Pakes.PVJ 6.27%
Backdoor.Nepoe.HM 5.77%
Worm.Rbot.AFAE 3.81%
JS.Mimail.C 3.44%
IRC.Flood.AQ 3.07%
BAT.Noshare.AD 2.70%
Worm.Kolabc.AYE 2.21%
I-Worm.Netsky.Q 2.21%
Other: 38.21%

Source: VirusBuster